Although the old adage "don't judge a book by its cover" is usually suitable for general application, any game with a name as puerile as Extinction should at least be treated with some suspicion before throwing your hard-earned money at it.

Although the old adage "don't judge a book by its cover" is usually suitable for general application, any game with a name as puerile as Extinction should at least be treated with some suspicion before throwing your hard-earned money at it.

Extinction is a mechanically functional but conceptually hacked-together facsimile of some absolutely tremendous titles from gaming's highlight reel.

The combat is borrowed from Dynasty Warriors and the hulking leviathans commandeered from Shadow of the Colossus.

Extinction derives its influences from these titles in the same way that knock-off manufacturers mimic Rolex watches - any inspection beyond the most superficial level causes the illusion to crumble.

Taking center stage in Extinction are the Ravenii, towering ogres whose sole duty is to wipe out every last human in the world.

Conveniently, they can only be killed by a strike to the back of the neck, meaning our protagonist Avil must scale each one of these gargantua in order to deliver the final blow. Ultimately, the kill is always satisfying, but the time spent getting there can often be frustrating.

The actual climbing mechanics themselves are nowhere near precise enough, often resulting in our nimble character getting stuck in odd places, or simply falling off the behemoth altogether.

In a different, but equally frustrating vein, the fighting mechanics are terribly stale, allowing victory in almost every fight in the game through repetitive mashing of the dodge and attack commands.

The only nuance in Extinction's combat is making educated guesses at the ratio of mashing required to provide maximum damage output and minimum damage taken. Spoiler: you'll have it figured out in about 30 seconds.

Really, you'll have experienced all this game offers after downing the second ogre. Everything gets progressively harder without actually introducing any novel gameplay past the first act.

Sure, this game is mostly fun and pretty but there's such a wealth of unique ideas in gaming now that you'd be silly to play a game that brings the same re-hashed ideas to the table that we were already growing tired of at the turn of the decade.